13-year-old girl locked up for two weeks before authorities realized she is a minor

According to reports, a 13-year-old girl was locked up for almost two weeks in a Dallas jail for shoplifting before authorities realized she was underage.

Internal affairs is investigating why authorities kept the minor, who had ran away from home, incarcerated for two weeks after she was arrested on July 10 at a Target department store.

The teenager was released after an inmate, who was an acquaintance of the girl’s family, recognized her and phoned her father, who came to the police station with the child’s birth certificate and other records verifying her identity and age.

Sr. Cpl. Roberto Garcia, the officer who arrested the minor, told The Dallas Morning News that the information that the girl provided him would have made her an adult.

“It’s just the frustrating battle that we have out there in the real world.” Garcia told the newspaper.  “I just have a heck of the time when these juveniles won’t tell you who they are and they have no ID.”